#But Ive also been coping hard because I keep trying to convince my brain all three of them are so sapphic | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

keilemlucent · 3 years

Text

pretty eyes & starshine: i

(NSFW)

hawks | takami keigo x reader

ao3

part i || part ii || part iii

beta’ed: @shadowworks & @keiqos (thank you!! 💞)

word count: ~9.4k

Keigo surrenders to losing himself in the blank-walled, temporary home he inhabits. He finds familiarity in the routine of aches, pains and pills.

You’re his only solace.

warnings: bodily trauma, medical trauma, PTSD, dissociation, suicidal ideation, alcohol as a coping mechanism and graphic description of sustained injury

a/n: oh wow so here it is, big sad fic :’^) part one!! it’s canon divergent from manga chapter 296 onwards.

this one has been a long time coming. please mind the warnings!! this fic deals a lot with trauma and mental illness in tandem. the warnings are going to change with the coming parts, so please be mindful. i don’t wanna get too sappy, but this piece has been my Baby for the past few months, and i’m excited to finally share. that being said, enjoy loves 💞

Everyone is fucked up after the War.

There is no kindness in an aftermath like this one, not so soon, and certainly not with dried blood of old comrades and mud still caking under its metaphorical fingernails. The world was in shambles, and every hero is along with it.

There is something horrifying about being at the center of it all, Hawks, no, Keigo thinks solemnly, all too often.

He’s used to the attention he’s getting, touches and poking and prodding by near strangers. Except, he was used to exclamations of how great and powerful and remarkable he was. Now, all the attention he receives is followed by little sighs and sad, broken eyes.

He’s sure he looks equally as sad; Keigo had been nothing but an empty shell since the War had ended and he’d been carted off to his hospital room. Numb despite all of his burns.

It’s the shock, he tells himself, he’ll snap out of it any day.

Any day.

...

And it is any day.

He wakes up to screaming from the next room over, agonized wails that pierce the air as his morning nurse enters. She’s over-worked and haggard while checking his vitals with a forced smile. They don’t make conversation with him much anymore, and Keigo doesn’t have the energy to try and force it. There isn’t enough in him to pretend that he’s okay enough to banter with folks.

If he still had his wings, he would’ve wrapped himself up tight in the plumage and let himself rot away in some corner. He’d let the dissociated numbness fade, however long it took, and then succumb to whatever psychological wounds revealed themselves.

Waste away, all alone.

But he doesn't have that luxury. He is in an overcrowded hospital with swarms of civilians and heroes, all stuffed in one place because the world doesn’t have the time to differentiate between the wounded, nor the space or resources to give different resources. Though, Keigo is a special case, hence why he’s had healers coming to him for the past three weeks since the War trying to coax his body into genesizing a new pair of wings.

The Commission’s hospital has all the bells-and-whistles that a medical professional could need, but Keigo, and so many others, are facing problems that don’t have good and easy roads to healing.

That’s assuming healing was even possible.

Keigo is convinced, has been convinced, that there is no way to come back from the War, nor the absence on his back, nor the shouts and cries of pain that echo around the hospital like a new genre of music that Keigo so desperately wants to scrub from his brain.

Things change, it’s inevitable. Everyone falls eventually, and he was just used to flying.

It’s a harder descent.

...

Keigo doesn’t meet you on any day, he meets you on a lonely night.

The evenings and early mornings were the most peaceful at the hospital. Most folks, three weeks after the end of it all, had serious enough injuries that they had to be somewhat sedated to sleep, either for physical or mental pain keeping them from sleep.

It’s morose, Keigo thinks, quietly and privately, but he craves those hours. All he hears then is the hum of air vents and beeps of his own medical machinery. None of the audible agony of the folks he was sworn to protect.

He’s slept most of the day, not lucid enough to do much else, and the nurses haven’t been giving him sedatives unless he asked (though he always did.) Without forced quiet, he’s antsy, fingers twitching and flaring the new (and growing) pains rooted in his (empty, isn’t that horrifying—) back.

He rouses himself, adjusting his scratching hospital garb (thin sweats and a cheap crew neck with the back almost entirely cut away). With his IV pole at his side, he resolves to take a few laps and quiet himself, hopefully.

(Keigo would need sedatives, he always did, but it was nice to play pretend that he didn’t. It made things easier for a precious hour or two.)

His laps are usually quick, despite how much his body aches when he walks. So much new, burnt tissue that needed to learn how to move, how to live again, kept him throbbing and gritting his teeth.

Masochism be damned, he keeps at it during his sleepless nights. Physical therapy wasn’t an option when the world was caving in with him at the epicenter.

There’s a common room at the end of the foyer of identical (filled) hospital rooms, just a collection of stuffy, uncomfortable couches that face an aged TV and a wide bay of windows. It’s rarely used, just a formality for when the space of the hospital had regularly hurt victims and heroes. When it wasn’t bearing so much weight.

Sometimes, he would stop to idly regard the mostly barren world around the hospital. Far from the cities, a little hideaway for heroes and their loved ones to heal in privacy. Other than sheer distance, there is a thick, organic shield around the complex. It’s a towering forest, man-planted with identical types of trees in perfect rows.

It’s grim in its predictability.

(When did he get so fucking pensive?)

(Oh yeah, too much time locked in his goddamn skull.)

He hadn’t been planning to have any inner musings that night.

But, that night, he notes that he is not alone.

On one of the hard couches, you sit, with your own IV-pole companion and injuries, an arm carried in a monochromatic sling and set in a hard cast.

You turn to him, blinking wide eyes at him.

There’s a single lamp on, and the light dances in your eyes with its own unexpected rhythm.

Something compels Keigo to smile, cocky, like he used to, and greet you with a little wave, and a finger to his lips.

Your expressions melts, a hand going over your mouth to stifle a giggle.

It’s like you’re pulling him after that, he finds himself resting across from you.

You must look like a pair, he realizes. You’re greasy, he’s greasy. He’s got a fine layer of built-up stubble that shouldn’t be called anything other than impressive peach fuzz (not that Keigo’s seen it, he’s felt it. The idea of looking in a mirror makes him sick to his stomach. Though you don’t have any pseudo-beard, you’ve got your own unkempt look and feel that makes you two kindred without sharing a word.

It feels comfortable, warm.

“Hi,” you speak first, voice soft and gentle. “Can’t sleep?”

“Nah, who can?” Keigo replies, shaking his head. “But what about you? Midnight oil doesn’t burn without a cause, you know.”

Your expression is also painful in the way it’s so open, yet worn (most everyone had locked up by now, the ones in the hospital and Keigo imagined the ones outside of it too.)

“I like the sky— the stars are pretty.” You sigh, wistful. “I watch for shooting stars.”

The thought, the significance of that obvious wanting, makes something pang deep in his chest. Childlike hope in a place like this, foolish as well as frail.

“Trying to get a wish?” Keigo clicked his tongue. “Smart.”

“No, no— wishing doesn’t... suit me, right now.” You snorted, shaking your head, the light in your eyes dancing, “I just think they’re pretty.”

Keigo blinks, unable to stop the way his eyes widen.

Your posture reads nothing but earnestness and vulnerability, so freely given (so undeserved) without a hint of pullback.

“What do you want to be called?”

“... Excuse me?” Keigo is not used to his thoughts being interrupted in the blanket of dark that he feels most comfortable in. Your words shock him enough with their meaning, let alone the way you’re so brazen.

“I, uh,” You stumble on your words. “I know who you are, but I also saw that whole broadcast, which I’m going to easily assume you don’t want to talk about. But, I don’t know how much you want to be called ‘Hawks’ at this point either.”

His mouth is dry.

“So, I ask instead,” You lean forward, your IV line pulling the slightest bit and you wince. His discomfort must be very fucking apparent, because you backtrack in moments. “... Or, neither. I can call you something else, too.”

“... A nickname, for someone you don’t even know?” Keigo, Hawks, whoever he is now struggles with words. There’s too many, and they’re all too fast, and he doesn’t have his wings to catch up to them or outrun them—

“Yeah, why not?” You shrug with a lazy smile. “I’ll call you... pretty eyes. How about that?”

Keigo does have pretty eyes. They’re gold, light and glittering amber in the lowlight. Before he, ya’ know, lost them, and when things were good, but awful, but normal, he darkened the organic marks around his canthi with liquid eyeliner. He liked makeup, prettied himself up and accentuated all the good he had. Preening.

None of that is left, just what organically was on his skin, and he hasn’t seen it in its raw state in years, and like fuck if he was going to look in a mirror just to figure out if his natural eyeliner was half as good as that by his own hand.

“Sure, that works,” He relaxes, mirroring your expression like the practiced... pro he is. “What do I call you, starshine?”

You roll your eyes, but nothing about you fades as you tell him your name, something that calms and fills him, “But, you can call me starshine if you want. Sounds nice.”

It’s sweet.

So, Keigo greets you.

“Nice to meet you, starshine.”

...

That’s the first time you kept each other’s company. Most of it is quiet, you truly do just want to watch the stars. Keigo did with you, tracing the shadows of clouds and moonlight with his eyes.

(Occasionally, his gaze shifts to you, regarding your figure with the same care for only a moment before returning to the sky you both miss.)

Eventually, the quiet heat of it puts him half to sleep, and he bids you goodnight.

You wave goodbye, rising as he away.

The light isn’t in your eyes anymore, and your warmth feels a little too far away.

...

The next days are long.

He slips into that shell-state again, where he’s a husk that stares emptily at the ceiling as the Commission tries to piece him together to a fraction of what he once was.

They fail, each time, because no healer they’ve brought can regenerate quirk-formed appendages, but he commends their efforts all the same. It’s out of desperation, sure, but he’s heard whispers of the new generation. In recalling his own sidekicks, he isn’t as scared for the future.

(Everyone else’s future. He’s so terrified of his own that he turns extra numb if he thinks about it.)

Selfishly, he just wants his wings for himself. They’d keep him plenty company. If he ever did get them back, he’d fly somewhere, faraway and alone to live out his days under his feathers and feel as empty as he wanted.

They fuss over him all day, not knowing those desires. They are private, and he only puts on his old, self-confident bravado so they don’t lock him up somewhere to have his brain picked and to fill the new holes with pill-shaped gauze.

As established, Keigo was content to rot.

(He can’t fully parse all of his feelings and they consume him.)

The healers for the week all failed, doing nothing but making his back bow and burn. It’s painful. Obviously, trying to stitch a body back together, or rather making a body make when it was so tired of creating—

(Feather after feather after feather, for how long?)

He’s glad his sessions are in a different room, a spare, horrifyingly metallic exam room across the hospital. It reeks like iron and isopropyl alcohol, but Keigo doesn’t mind. The filmy paper that rolls from the exam table gets soaked with his sweat as opposed to his familiar bed dressings.

Not to mention, it’s nice, not having to hear his neighbor’s screams and pleadings to God, any god, for reprieve. Calming.

(He feels less guilty. Less like it was his own hand that scarred up their bodies. If he can’t hear them, he only thinks of his own agony under ‘helping’ hands.)

His body is exhausted at the end of each day, and even his restlessness fades with the necessities of his body.

He doesn’t see you, and practically forgets about you.

It’s a week or so later when he takes one of his strolls, and finds you tucked away into your nook, dimly lit and with a blanket over your lap.

Keigo feels it as he nears you, that comfort that your expression bleeds into his very soul. Even as he watches your healthy hand nervously toy with the thin knit in your lap, it doesn’t dim you.

The lamplight dances in your eyes as you nod to him, “Fancy seeing you here, pretty eyes.”

“You’d never know it, but I live just down the hallway— me,” He touches his chest proudly, surprised by his own jest.

You gave a fake gasp, mirroring him easily, “Never knew I had such a well-known soul in my neighborhood. Forgive my transgression.”

Bending at the waist, as much as you can with your right leg extended, straight, you choke on laughter.

Keigo follows you in it, giggling, genuinely giggling, high and light and girlish like he’d never heard from himself before.

He snapped his mouth shut, thickly swallowing and shaking his head.

“No need to be shy,” You assured him with an affectionate turn of the head. “You have a lovely laugh.”

“Now you’re just flirting with me, cute.”

Your head tilted farther, confused, “I’m simply being kind to you.”

Why didn’t he have the snark to reply to that? Probably because he was half-dead and on painkillers for nearly a month. He’d beat himself up about it later, maybe.

There wasn’t an ounce of malice in your tone, just earnestness that tugged at his own insecurities.

You backpedaled. “How was your day?”

Keigo takes a few moments to respond, shaking his head without mind to the way his too-long hair flops in his face.

The banter isn’t forced, but it’s not welcomed yet.

As comfortable as you feel to him, Keigo isn’t comfortable.

“Same old, same old,” Living hell. “Boring, mostly. Painful, but dull. It’s crazy how much hell smells like cheap disinfectant, huh?”

You agree, quietly, “I’m pretty sure there’s many hells in this place.”

Keigo doesn’t know how to respond, so he doesn’t.

You both regard the stars again with growing reverence. Specks of light dance back in your eyes as you both settle into the hard cushions like they were made of goose down and Sherpa.

...

Your conversations are... disjointed, to say the least.

There’s an inability for words and phrases to flow between you. There’s starts and stops, stalls like an engine that putters on tarry oil without ever truly firing. There are good feelings, still, safety in silence before words as you stargaze together through the comfort of a window.

It should feel disarming, to be so far from the sky yet have no way to reach it. And it is, but Keigo can swallow the reality these days. It’s easier when there’s someone on the mend close by, sharing in the discomfort of a rawed mind and the comfort of a yellow-toned fluorescent bulb.

It’s unspoken kinship. Keigo never had time for it in the past, but now it was all he had. There had to be some cruel irony in it (as if there wasn’t enough in his life), but he couldn’t make himself mind.

Everything he’d once excelled at, everything he had was gone. He was barren and stripped (don’t think about it—), exposed to the elements in all the worst ways. At least the hospital was clean and safe, relatively.

It feels safest with you near.

Sure, your conversations were clearly that of two horribly broken people, but that wasn’t new or surprising. It simply was.

“Do you know constellations?” You ask one night, a colder one, where you’ve got two blankets over your lap.

Keigo thought for a moment, “A handful, but I never took to stargazing, you know?”

You don’t relate, just chew your lip, the light of the dim lamp dancing across your irises.

“Can I show you some?”

“...Constellations?”

“What else?” You crack a smile. “Come on, pretty eyes.”

Whatever you’d like, he’d do.

He can’t refuse, he’s already getting weak for you.

Shifting, Keigo joins you on your typical couch for the first time. Your IV poles, thrumming and humming their own rhymes harmonize, quietly and mostly imperceptible.

You regard him even more warmly, so close, a little smile playing on your lips.

“What’s your sign?”

Keigo deadpans, “What?”

“Like... astrology. What’s your sign?”

You wiggle your eyebrows, knowing the double-meaning of your words.

Flirting again.

Since when had he been so bad at it?

“Capricorn,” He huffs back. He keeps his back off the stone-like cushions of the couch— his scarring had been itchy the whole day prior— so itchy—

You tap the plastic-y fabric gap between the two of you, grabbing his attention, “Hey, pretty eyes. Stick with me, let me show you where that one is.”

So, you do.

Your light-filled eyes trace the sky’s nighttime freckles, searching until you find what you’re looking for.

“There,” Your finger raises, tracing the patterns in the air. “That’s Capricorn, can you see?”

Not really, the stars are just a meaningless smatter. If there’s some sort of pattern he’s supposed to find, he comes up with none.

“Not in the slightest,” Keigo rolls his eyes. “Show me again?”

You don’t reply, but rather scoot a bit closer, mirror his hunch and pose with precision and tiny adjustments.

He doesn’t dare to breathe as you carefully grab his arm, extending it. You lay your cheek over his bicep, watching from the closest view to his own that you could.

“Do you see now?”

The only starlight he sees is right in front of him, soft cheek pressed against atrophying muscles. Sharing your heat so graciously as you would so easily come to, you chatter about the stories that are written in the stars, by all cultures, for so long.

Keigo hears, but he’s far more focused on how he wishes you were even closer.

...

After that night, you always share the same couch.

You face forward, right leg always extended and stiff-looking. Keigo doesn’t mind, hardly notices. He faces you, fragile back bandaged and kept away from the unforgiving grit of the uncomfortable couch. It looks a bit uncomfortable, the posing of it all, but with the words flowing easier, neither of you mind.

You keep showing him stars, the constellations you can remember and see in the night sky.

Keigo makes fun and crafts his own, connecting new dots and winding stories about them.

“See those three there?” He guides your hand, close enough to share your breath. “That’s the comb of the chicken. Star comb, if you will.”

You snort, rolling your eyes and pulling your hand from his grip, “There’s no cock in the stars, pretty eyes. Chickens can’t fly anyways.”

You both freeze.

Keigo’s mouth goes dry—

Chicken can’t fly.

As much as you’re both learning to be human again, there isn’t talk of your injuries. Maybe, there’s mutual curiosity (you’ve been here two months. just for a broken arm, why?), but like fuck Keigo wants to broach the subject.

“S-sorry,” you stumble over your words, physically retreating. “Shouldn’t have said that.”

It is a fact, chickens can’t fly, but Keigo isn’t a chicken. He’s a debauched, defamed hero whose home is the same set of a milky white, hospital ward walls. Once, a real hero, before the war, before selling his morals just for a chance at rest, before blue flame— burning—

“Pretty eyes,” Your voice trembles, shaking and lonesome. “Come back here, now. Come on.”

You’re holding his cheeks, unkempt nails pressing (blessedly) a bit too hard into his cheeks. The heat of you is so close, almost scalding him, but he wants more of it, more of the heat that doesn’t burn—

“You’re okay, pretty eyes, s-see?” You hold yourself together, jerking your head to the wide window and glittering stars. “We’re just stargazing.”

Keigo’s has tears leaking down his face, but neither of you acknowledge them. You release him, quietly spinning another tale about a hero hung in the cosmos. He thanks you for it silently by tugging you into his side.

(It was the first night you really touched him.)

(The light in your eyes was so close, he wanted it all for himself.)

...

They’re running out of healers to try.

From the weakest to the strongest quirk, no one could revive his dead wings. There was no root to push from the scar tissue, nor resolve left in Keigo to try and make new pins and feathers sprout.

His back isn’t fertile. It’s just as poisoned as the rest of him.

...

He wonders where you disappear to during the day. He takes his strolls then, too. Waves to nurses these days, not charming, just friendly, trying to make a little brightness.

There’s one day where he asks one of the nurses he knows best for a pair of scissors.

She looks at him, worried, “Don’t tell me we need to put you on psych watch.”

“What? No,” Keigo shakes his head, shaggy hair quivering around the frame of his face. “I just need a bit of a haircut.”

“... We can ask the Commission to bring someone in—”

“I can do it myself.”

She doesn’t argue with the firmness of his voice, rather, she hands him a pair of safety scissors with bright purple handles. They’re for a child, but Keigo’s fine with that. They’d do.

When he was younger, and in a pinch (and so poor he tried to eat grass and lick scraps from metallic packaging of discarded junk food wrappers) he’d cut his hair with his own feathers.

Safety scissors would be even easier.

It did mean that he had to confront his own visage, which he had gotten too good at avoiding.

The bathroom in his room is small, it would’ve been claustrophobic if he was still carrying a twenty-five-foot wingspan.

But, he isn’t. It was just him and the scars on his back that he definitely wasn’t ready to see.

He’s caught glimpses of himself over the past weeks, but nothing substantial. No view that would’ve given himself time to scrutinize over his imperfection.

The dull hospital mirror reveals too much about him. It feels too vulnerable, makes his chest tighten, as he stares himself in his ‘pretty eyes’.

Purple stamps below his eyes, probably not from sleeplessness itself, just the sheer exhaustion of living. The one under his left is an odd maroon color, mixing with the scar that is burned into that half of his face.

The skin was once soft, plump cheeks always tended too and well taken care of by expensive skincare products. Now, it’s charred and gaunt. Healing, but still obviously scarred heavy and deep. The weak beard he’s been growing (accidently) is patchy around the thickened tissue.

It bothers him—

It doesn’t look like him in the mirror.

It helps to take care of himself for the first time in a long while.

He shaves with the cheap foam and single blade razor they’d given him in the toiletries pack the first days he was there, while he was still numbed out and half-dead. The metal glides over his skin, stripping away the numbness just a little. The stubble and cream slide down the drain and away.

His hair is different. The waves had for so long been pushed back and held that way with the winds of his flights. The longer, feathery patches now hang around his face, dangling down and mingling with the too-long sections that curl over his ears and down his neck.

Wetting his hair, he cuts away what he can.

It’s blunt, messy, and not elegant.

All the same, the trim feels good.

Though, his mood goes sour when the screaming starts for the day.

The far wall of the bathroom was shared by him and his shrieking neighbor, and he took great care to never shower when they were singing their awful chorus. It grates on his ears; he should’ve been a bit empathetic to their suffering, but he didn’t care that much. It was so regular, that the screaming that might’ve once sent each one of his feathers (don’t think about, don’t fucking think about it) sharp as the razor in his hand, didn’t bother him in the slightest.

Just a poke at his temple, a jab and a drop of water that irks him more than anything else.

It is a... somewhat pleasant distraction. He can focus more on his fellow patient than his own haggard appearance, the scar, the lack of red at his back—

It’s all okay, ‘okay’, until the patient starts babbling.

“M-make it stop!”

Keigo stills.

A scream tears through the drywall. Even without his wings, it makes him thrum, far-too sensitive.

“Help!” The voice yelps. “HELP!”

There’s a thud and thump from the other room.

“Please, please!”

Keigo’s heart stutters in his chest, and the razor falls from his hand, clattering into the sink.

“MAKE IT STOP!”

It’s you.

It’s your screaming and shrieking that’s burrowed in his ears. It’s your voice that’s trembling in desperation that has him running out of his room, nearly pulling out his IVs as the pole teeters and follows behind him.

Why are you screaming?

Why have you always been screaming?

A nurse is trying to stop him, urging him to settle but he can’t. There's an urgency in his chest he hasn’t felt since back before and he has to heed it. He needs to.

He pulls his forearm from the nurse’s grasp, hissing in his own pain, muscles pulling and aching with disuse but he doesn’t care.

The nurses drag him back from your door, and they almost have him, almost have him on the ground.

And then he smells burning—

Cloth.

Flesh.

And something in him snaps.

He clocks the nearest nurse with a tight fist, ignoring his atrophied muscles and kicking with everything he could muster.

They release him, probably out of shock. (He’d been such a model patient, so complacent and quiet until then.)

Then, he stumbles into your room, and sees you, and wants to die.

...

There’s plenty of times in his life where Keigo felt like an animal. When the Commission first got their hands on him, they took to studying and picking his quirk about to figure out the most efficient way to rebuild it to their needs and uses. Now then, he felt very much like an experiment, only half-human. He was too young to really ‘get’ it, but the feeling persisted.

Sometimes, he felt similarly when he played celebrity. The talk shows, the modeling and media felt hoops he had to jump through just to get a decent night’s sleep. It was an additional job aside from heroics, one he excelled at and entertained him. But that didn’t mean each flash of a camera didn’t suck him dry of a bit of his dignity.

He was sure you had to be feeling similarly.

You’re writhing and arching in your bed, curls of smoke rising from your papery hospital gown. Every machine in your room is screaming with you, bloody and loud and angry—

And scared. Keigo recognized well, and it drove pins into his heart to realize it was you.

It’s even worse when he realizes some part of you is burning.

At your bedside, he freezes.

Nylon straps wrap around your wrist, around your cast, and keep you held tight to the bed. You’re tied down, held to the plastic bed frame as you wretch and scream.

You don’t even notice him.

The smoke rises from your burning hospital gown. He rips it away, tears the burning section away with his shaking hand. It’s crass, and Keigo sees a bit too much. The gauze wrapping your leg below is burning as well, in little veins of char that burns black and smoldering.

Keigo tears it all away, he tears and tears—

And then he sees the wound.

He was trained, once, to see this type of horror and not bat an eye. That training was gone, and all that remained was his starshine with a writhing, molten wound.

Keigo is numb as the nurses drag him back to his room, trying to decide if he prefers the apathy and numbness to injury that his old heroism gave him, or the blinding pain of empathy when someone you... care about is hurt.

He can’t decide which he’d rather suffer with.

...

You appear in the common room a few nights later.

Keigo still takes his walks in the late evening, even if you aren’t there. If anything, he needs them more. He’s restless, always listening for the screams or howls from the next room over. His annoyance towards them was gone, and all that remained was a concern that knotted in the pit of his stomach.

There’s a sigh of relief on his lips when he finds you, nestled into a pile of blankets with your IV pole, watching the stars with sad eyes.

He joins you on your couch, cracking a decent joke that you don’t respond to.

Then, there’s silence.

It’s as loud as the stars are bright. The expanse of sound is filled by the hum of the cold air and distant beeping.

“I’m sorry,” Your voice shakes. “You shouldn’t have seen me like that. It’s not... Easy to look at. Or, I imagine it’s not.”

Keigo wants to rip the apology from your tongue and burn it.

“No, please, it’s alright,” He’s begging too much. “I get it.”

As much as he can, anyways.

You’re quiet again, biting your lip so hard it must be close to breaking skin.

“Can we... talk about things?” You ask, softer. “I can’t keep pretending.”

“...’Pretending’?” Keigo knows, but he selfishly wants to hear you say it.

“Well, you didn’t think I’ve been here for two months for my bum arm, right?” You laugh weakly. “And I’m well-aware that you don’t have wings.”

We just don’t talk about it.

“It’s nicer to look at the stars and pretend everything’s fine,” Keigo lays the statement down and regrets it.

Your fist tightens, jaw clenching.

And there’s more silence.

It’s deafening to Keigo, he wants to speak, scream, but you’re quiet next to him. He can fill voids with his voice so, so easily, yet he turns in on himself.

“I know, it’s all hard,” Tears drip down from your words, though your cheeks remain dry. “I know, but there was a War two months ago, and we’re still holed up in a place like this, and we never talk about why.”

You turn to him, light dancing slowly in your eyes. Your lips part to speak, but no sound comes out.

“... I didn’t want to ask.” Keigo speaks, gaze shifting down to your leg. He questioned why a broken arm would keep you here, but you can’t just ask that. “It’s bad form to ask a stranger about their injuries unnecessarily when they’re traumatized.”

“But we’re not strangers, not anymore.”

Keigo can’t disagree.

...

You had been in a conbini when Gigantomakia tore through your little suburb. It was a few miles away, but the ground shook as if the goliath was just outside the automatic doors.

Your demon was near, though.

It was a man from the PLF who tore into you so badly. Just some random, emboldened civilian who ascribed to Destro’s ideology hard enough to think about taking out his frustrations on ‘weaker-quirked’ individuals.

That meant the young couple getting slushies in the corner, the old man behind the cash register, and you.

(You’d told your roommate you’d be home quick to help her study—)

(Your roommate is dead, under several tons of rubble.)

“The old man died before the heroes even started trying to rescue anyone. The couple was begging each other to hold on, but only one of them lasted. He died within a few weeks of being taken here.”

There was just you.

You’d hardly been touched by the man, the fucking villain, who’d set his mark on you. But it was more than enough to leave a writhing scar.

Keigo asks to see it, and quietly, you oblige him.

You’re in a gown, you always have been. The hem of it is pulled up by your visibility shaking fingers, and slowly reveals the scar in the lowlight of the ever-present lamp. He’d seen it once, but that didn’t change how startling it was.

It’s molten.

The skin is gnarled, twisting and scarred worse than anything Keigo’s ever seen. It was like the gore of a torn flesh was frozen over your right side, from your calf, to your thighs to your pretty hips—

“It goes higher, but that’s not exactly couth to show you,” you joke, but neither of you laugh.

“... It’s not moving anymore?”

“Oh, yeah. It calms down, when it’s dark. Nighttime and all. It stops being so ornery.”

Keigo has a laundry list of questions, but with the expression on your face that just bleeds exhaustion into the air, and the fresh burns from the restraints on your wrists, he keeps quiet.

Maybe, three months ago, he’d jabber on about the injury, try to gode some information out on the villain, profile him, track him and beat the tar out of him for touching you—

But this is the present, and Keigo is a wingless soul. All he has is a prescription for painkillers on a rigid schedule, and the awareness that you both appreciate each other.

Keigo scoots to your uninjured side, lifting his arm up and around your shoulder. It hurts, it fucking hurts, but he doesn’t mind.

You tense for a moment, turning to him with wide eyes, scared like he’s never seen.

Then, you melt into him.

...

Keigo’s busy with healers the week, though none speak his language, literally. They’re international, foreign aid that’s been flown in to try to pick up the disaster of a society that’s been left in the wake of the War and the dissolution of Tartarus.

None of them make progress.

As much as it burns (haha) him to his core, he’s accepting the reality, slowly but surely.

...

Endeavor visits him.

It’s the morning after a particularly sweet night with you. You still sit together in the starlight, though you’ve run out of constellations to show him. It’s less quiet than it used to be, just little banter that flows between the two of you. It feels more genuine than his old bluntness, welcome after so much odd tension when you first started enjoying the heat of each other’s presence and the far-off stars.

You’d taken to spending time together during the day as well... As much as you could. Strapping you to your bed was for your own safety. Your broken arm had snapped the first few days at the hospital because of the severity of your spasms and flares. The nurses keep you wrapped up, but Keigo drags a chair close to your bed and talks to you as much as he can.

It helps you relax.

Though the days fill with tension as you try to negate the inevitability of your molten scar coming to life, nights remain calm.

And so, so sweet.

You’ve taken to tucking into his side, telling him little treasured facts about the cosmos. It’s easier to guide his eyes like that, as your cheek rests over his collarbone.

It lingers with him, the feeling of your casual touch, so tentatively offered and so graciously received.

He traces his own constellations over your gown, mindful of the flesh beneath that heats beneath his palm when he gets too close.

After one of those wonderful, early nights, Enji Todoroki enters his room with all of the gusto one would expect. Which is not very much, but the sheer presence of him is enough to make Keigo quake.

Just like the little boy from Kyushu, Keigo regards him with stars in his eyes.

The hero, not a speck of flame on him (thank god) pulls up a chair near his bed. Keigo sits cross-legged and cocks his head to the side.

“What brings you to my neck of the woods, number one?” Keigo smiles.

“Number fifteen.”

“... What?”

“Since my injuries, I’m mostly on bedrest,” Enji replied, folding his hands on his chin. “I’m number fifteen now, and that number will more than likely just drop. I’m not much of a hero with only one lung. I’m planning to officially retire at the end of the month.”

Keigo’s chest goes tight and it feels like he’s joking. He tosses on a tight smile.

“This is hardly time for a pillar—“

“I’m no pillar. I never was,” Enji sighs, running a hand over his scarred cheek. “The kids can handle this.”

Keigo breaks so easily these days.

“That’s not fair—” He had been tossed into this all too early and god it fucked him up—

“Hawks,” Enji sighed. “There’s hardly anyone left to fight. They’re either dead, missing part of themselves, or gone.”

“So, you’re giving up?”

“If I didn’t, I’d die.”

Coward.

No, just honest and smart.

“Since when are you this selfish?” Keigo’s own words surprise him, but he doesn’t back down. “And this wordy, number one? You’ve changed.”

He spits the last phrase like an insult. He hates himself for it and would hate himself even more for it later.

Enji’s face remains solid and unwavering. The twitch in his brow is the only indication that Keigo’s words were even heard.

“Since we lost, Keigo. Things have changed.”

Keigo knew, of course, but it didn’t stop the anger from rolling his belly.

“Oh, like I don’t fucking know,” If Keigo still had his wings, they would’ve been extended and fluffed, angry as the pinched skin of his forehead.

This was his hero, he couldn’t be giving up too—

“Rest, Hawks,” Enji stand up, “You deserve it.”

Seems Endeavor really died. Enji’s face is worn, his expression neutral and jaw slack. He looks hollowed out and empty, not an ounce or morsel of fight left in him, even for a flightless bird in need of some encouragement.

There’s more to be said, but Keigo’s too angry to listen and Enji doesn’t have the energy to try.

Whatever news the old hero had come to bring was left undelivered.

...

You settle together the next few nights, both so damn tired, even though you’ve done nothing other than lay around a hospital for so-many weeks.

The air always vibrates between the two of you, that comfortable warmth shared between mingling breath and senses. Light dances in your eyes, twisting and bouncing like something otherworldly.

(Maybe it is.)

Your fingers lace together, held in Keigo’s lap. You trace the others hand in relaxing little lines and shapes, trying to soothe each other’s wounds, always.

“One of the doctors said the scar might start shrinking,” You break the tender silence, nosing into his jaw in the same way an affectionate cat would. “They’re not entirely sure, but it’s been stable for a few days.”

Keigo’s feathery (don’t think about it) eyebrows shot up, “That’s amazing, and there’s only a few spasms this week, too.”

(He kept good tabs on you, he had to.)

You hummed in agreement, a sad smile playing on your lips as it so often did.

With a quick blink, the light bouncing in your eyes faded, and the world felt a bit colder.

“I don’t know what I’m gonna do when I get out of here,” You pressed closer to him. “There’s shelters, and some cities are taking refugees, but I don’t—”

Your jaw clicks shut, brow furrowed and mood soured.

(Keigo, mind you, is still focusing on the lack of light in your eyes and the chill of the air in the room.)

Something stirs, deep in his gut, but he doesn’t say anything. How Keigo used to have such a mouth, he didn’t know. These days, all he can is act, like somehow the loss of his wings came with the loss of his tongue.

Tugging you by the waist, mindful of the tender scar, he pulls you close, internally resolving.

...

She, the main Suit, visits him.

(It’s his last visitor at the hospital.)

There are no trumpeters, guards, or the like. It’s just the haggard president, matching Keigo with his dark circles and creased with new wrinkles and far-more grey sections in her slicked back hair.

The air stands still as she pulls up a chair, burying her head in her hands.

She, the Main Suit, has never been one to inquire as to how he is. Many of the others at the Commission were sweet, kind to him in youth, but she was all business.

Some things never change.

She breaks the silence of the room, “... do you want to be done, Hawks?”

The cords in his chest tighten, gaze going sharper.

He doesn’t answer.

They meet each other’s gazes; twenty years of fucked-up emotion being shared between the pair of them.

“We’ve done everything. Every healer, every quirk, every treatment, conventional or otherwise,” she’s too soft. “There’s nothing left to try.”

He knew that, he had to know that, right?

His throat feels sticky as he swallows down bile, the scars on his back burning anew. It’s somatic, it has to be, but his flesh crawls and writhes just like yours. His starshine. He hates the way his mind is racing, just as fast as it always has, but his body lacks the ability to keep up.

He grounds himself in the thought of you, his starshine. Your body. Your heat.

His narrow pupils refocus on the light tremble in her shoulders.

“I’m being honest, so I’ll ask again,” She meets his gaze, grey eyes as soulless and full as ever. “Do you want to be done?”

“Well, obviously I can't fight—”

“I mean it. All of it, Hawks. Maybe a few media appearances, but all this... shit. You’ve done enough.”

You’ve done enough.

The words bounce around in his skull.

“Do you want to be done?”

Done with being a hero.

That’s all he’d ever been, right? That is him, he is Hawks, for fuck’s sake, no one other than Dabi (may he rot and die and immolate in hell) even called him his actual name in years.

Keigo is Hawks.

His mouth is dry, and he tries to ignore the tears pricking his eyes. He’s not sure why he’s beginning to cry, and definitely not sure why tension is draining from his shoulders as he sighs out an answer.

“I’ll be done.”

You’ve done enough.

...

Hospital beds are a hot commodity, and now that Keigo had thrown in the towel (along with everyone else) to stop trying with his wings, he was to be discharged within a few days.

(“Just a few more days to adjust your body to your new medications—”)

He’d stopped listening after that.

...

Your last night together is so bittersweet, you taste it on each other’s tongues.

You have an episode early in the day. Your screaming wakes the floor, the burning smell of flesh cementing that it was you.

Keigo’s only half-lucid when he shoves into your room, holding your hands while nurses desperately try to administer pain medication.

It’s too much for you, the crawling edges of the scar once again consuming you in the molten, glowing amber veins of heat that tore through you so terribly.

You sleep the day away. Keigo stays with you for much of it, stroking the bones in the back of your hands.

...

He fucks you for the first time, that night.

His own IVs have been removed, he’s to be discharged first thing in the morning—

And he wants one more night of stargazing, please, please—

(Why’s he clutching at you so dearly?)

But you’re not in the common room.

Rather, you’re under a few thin blankets, eyes tired and lightless. Your arm is out of its cast, laying over the bed clothes. It scares him shitless at first as he tentatively enters. It’s you though, and the moment you see him, it’s like a flame, a good one, heats the room full and wide. A few specks of light dance in between your irises as your skin crinkles in a gentle smile.

You both know he’s leaving tomorrow.

The knowledge settles in the room like a weight that neither of you can move. So, Keigo takes to it and does what he can.

As opposed to his normal perch next to his bed, he sits beside you, removing the restraints on your wrists and helping you to sit up.

Keigo fishes around in his pocket, pulling out a folded square of paper and placing it at your bedside. It’s his phone number, an odd detail. Relationships usually shared far-earlier.

But there is nothing linear or normal about the two of you, or the situation you both sit and stewed in.

You both are making peace with it at your own pace.

The bed creaks as you move to sit beside him, legs dangling from the bed. There’s gooseflesh beneath your gown, the boring pattern obscured by the darkness of the room, but the molten lines of the scar ever-visible.

“I’m glad you’re getting out of here.”

But I wish that you weren’t leaving.

His hand finds your waist, careful like he always is, but so giving in the same breath.

“I am too. It’ll be nice to be.”

But I’m going to miss you.

It’s inherent, and has been forever. Since the moment you both stargazed in the common room and watched the worlds high above twist and shine without regard to your own hells, you’ve been ensnared in the other and neither of you have a want or need to let go.

Even with the inevitably of progress.

Keigo drowns in these thoughts, and has been since Endeavor visited and he was reminded of the harsh reality just outside of their tree-ringed prison. The reality he has to return to—

He presses his lips to yours, more desperate and needy than he had before.

Keigo had taken his share of you before, little pecks and the rub of the bridge of his nose over your jaw and cheeks. He had been a bit greedier with his hands, uncaring of the eyes of the night nurses when he’d touched you in the common room.

But he’s insatiable that last night.

The sheets of the plastic bed are too scratchy, they’re too harsh for you, and it burns Keigo to his core as he lowers you down. He cradles what he can, as your fingers latch onto his clothes (real clothes) and tug him as close as you can get.

The machines in your room cry, but they’re forgotten.

You nip at his bottom lip, dragging yours across his clean-shaven jaw before laying into his neck with kiss after kiss. His muscles shake, holding him over you, both of you atrophied but uncaring.

You suck a deep, throbbing bruise on the fragile skin of his neck. It’s something dark that won’t fade for a week. The thought stirs something in his chest, a white-hot feeling that wants to crack his ribs and consume him. He doesn’t give in, he can’t—

“Stay with me, pretty eyes,” you whisper, so sweet and gentle as you push floppy strands of hair from his face. “Stay here, just for a little while longer.”

The reminder jolts him back, back to you, and the way your body (so tired, but unwavering) jumps and rolls under his touch. He’s a glutton for attention, always has been, but your particular brand and sounds keep pulse hot and hard.

Shaky fingers pull his shirt over his head, sweaty palms push the gown over your hips. By the starlight, you’re both seeing too much of each other, but this is a goodbye, there’s no time to dwell on the discomfort.

Keigo tries to be careful as he adjusts your legs, tries to be mindful of the raw skin and flesh that makes you whine and half-writhe. You clutch at him, still trying to pull him closer despite the proximity and heat, like you need him as opposed to just wanting him.

There’s no fanfare in it, just more rushed kisses and the swirling of fingertips over covered clit. You catch each other’s gasps in the mingling of breaths you share. It’s choking, suffocating, yet entirely not enough. You beg, quietly, for more. Your fingers latch onto his wrist and urge him to help pull your panties off and away.

More, more, more.

By the time he slides into you, you're still tense, but so is he, and in a pile of tension and fear and wishful-thinking, you both come undone, and undone, and undone—

...

Keigo leaves the next morning.

The press is there, flash bulbs blinding him after so long with just fluorescents and starlight. He manages an easy wave or two, no autographs or gleaming smiles, just business and numbness that he needed to hold onto, so he didn’t fucking break.

He slips into the Commission’s car and leaves behind the hospital, you, and its wall of man-laid greenery and prays to forget it all quickly. He has enough to mourn.

...

Keigo wants to off himself when he arrives back at his penthouse.

How can he not?

His ‘home’ (if he couldn’t even call it that) is a dusty, time capsule of everything before. Before he got fucked up with the League, before the PLF, before the war, before Jin—

Every untouched bit of his life from when it was a few, precious fractions better stands unturned. A discarded jacket, wing slits visible and frayed. Scattered dead feathers that make his skin crawl. Memorabilia too, old merchandise that he never cared much about, but he definitely didn’t need to be seeing it now that ‘Hawks’ had burned up and died.

All disgusting reminders.

Something burning fills the base of his skull when his gaze fixates on one of the old plumes. He reaches out to touch the spine of it, instinctually expecting a little jolt of feeling from it, like he always had.

But there’s nothing. It’s dead, decaying, and so is he.

The reality of it breaks him, quick, hard and hot. He burns alive a second time.

He clears the liquor cabinet while blaring music from his over-priced stereo system loud enough to make his ears ache and throb. The music isn’t drowning anything out, but it’s better to pretend.

He finds a bottle of old pills and downs them with a few swigs of expensive whiskey and lets go.

...

When he comes to, he’s staring into a smashed mirror, with his own nails crusted in blood from thin welts in the skin of the scar on his face.

Much to his chagrin, he hasn’t forgotten anything. The memories of blue flames, red feathers, and the smell of your skin mixed with isopropyl alcohol feel brighter than ever. He grounds on them as he sobers up, latching onto the pain of his scar tissue and the solace you gave.

And won’t ever give him again.

Something in him wilts as he defeatedly goes to his phone, arranging any number of things to get him the fuck out.

...

The penthouse is sold, his more important belongings gathered in bland boxes.

And he leaves. There’s no sentiment holding him there, not anymore.

Fukuoka is gone and some distant memory as he drives (yes, he forgot that he had that skill) him and his things to his new home.

His penthouse had been immaculate. Crisp interior design, new shapes and colors that were on trend. He was hardly home to appreciate the modern beauty of it, but he’d received enough compliments from random hookups to know that it landed aesthetically.

But honestly?

Who the fuck cared?

His penthouse had been sold to the highest bidder and far behind as he arrives at his new, high home in the sleekness of his far-too fancy, disused car.

...

He gets a call from an unknown number, another one, on some snowy day, deep in winter.

Keigo debates answering it. He almost lets it slip to voicemail. The only calls worth answering are the handful from the Commission that he has to heed, or the odd one from Rumi, Fuyumi, and on occasion, Endeavor.

Not random numbers, he has no patience for it.

Yet, he answers it lazily.

“Washed up hero, how can I help you?”

“P-Pretty eyes?”

His heart stutters in his chest, he swears—

“Starshine?” He sounds breathless, the air leached from his chest as he white-knuckles his thighs.

He’d given up on you contacting him, yet there you were, or at least your voice, mechanical and high bouncing around preciously in the walls of the cabin

There’s a moment of silence, nearly, just your light breathing that receiver picks up.

Your voice trembles when you break it, “Y-yeah, it’s me, I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to call—”

You don’t need to be sorry; he would wait for you forever, and then some.

“I d-don’t actually have a phone? Mine got trashed, uh, back then. I’m on the hospital’s line.”

Keigo hadn’t really considered that, he’s slipped the paper with his number on your bedside without a thought.

How much had you lost?

“No worries, chickadee,” Keigo is sure his smile is audible. “Why call now? Miss me too much?”

He had no idea.

You laugh, though it soured as you spoke, “I get discharged tomorrow.”

Keigo’s heart seizes again and he’s sure he’s going to go into cardiac arrest.

“The guy who gave me the scar and all? He fucked up a few other people, word eventually got here. Once the scar stops... glowing, it rests. If you make it until then, you’re good.”

And alive.

“The whole injury is stable, has been for a week now,” Surprisingly, there’s no relief in your voice. “They need my bed, so they’re releasing me.”

No, no, no.

Where will you go?

Keigo doesn’t say it, but the question hangs in the air and is quickly answered.

“They got me a spot in one of the shelters close by... It’s only a couple hours by train!” You try to sound happy, but it’s so hollow and unnatural; it makes Keigo physically sit up.

No, no, no.

That won’t do.

“... What won’t do?”

Keigo hadn’t realized he’d said it out loud.

Something is buried in his chest, something warm and molten, like the old veins of your scar, just kinder and better. It’s full of urges, so seldom used, selectively as needed throughout his career as a hero.

The need to keep something precious safe.

The thing hasn’t thrashed in months.

Yet now? It’s practically screaming.

“Pretty eyes?” You sound scared through the phone. “A-Are you alright? I can call back—”

“No, don’t, do not.” Keigo lets the flame fill his chest, welcoming it. “You’re not going to that shelter.”

He has something to protect.

“I don’t have another choice—”

Someone.

“You do.” Keigo keeps his voice even, the muscles in his back writhing. If he still had his wings, they’d be puffed out and large. Impassioned with feeling he finally let breath between his ribs. “I’ll come get you, tomorrow.”

“... P-Pardon?”

He doesn’t hesitate, and for a moment, he starts to feel like his old self.

“Come home with me, starshine.”

++++++

thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed!! 💗

look out for parts 2 and 3!!!💞

ko-fi

#salem writes #hawks x reader #hawks #takami keigo #takami keigo x reader #hawks x you #takami keigo x you #hawks fanfic #hawks imagines #my hero academia #mha x reader #anyways tag wall #enjoy loves #smorch

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dandystones · 4 years

Text

Yes means no.

***There are two parts to this long ass post because I didn't realise I had so much to say oops***

Setting boundaries, I recently learnt I've been terrible at that for most of my life.

I hate when people tell me what to do, to the point I'd do the exact opposite, but I always wanted validation. I sought it from everyone and their mothers because I never got it from myself.

The internet seems to talk a big game about how the universe will keep on sending you lessons in all it's glorious forms if we don't pick up on it; like how we always encounter the same toxic people and relationships, one after another.

It's funny when I recall them now.

***PART 1***

I like to think I've been very blessed when it came to friendship. All through my life, I've always felt that I made friends easily and had plenty of platonic support. However at different stages of my life, I've also noticed that despite all the good friends I surrounded myself with, I've always had that one person in my life who was just a little too self absorbed, borderline narcisstic and treaded way too close for comfort.

For reference, I'm going to list some people but not their whole names: my mum >> X >> O >> H >> C

The most coincidental thing I've come to realise is 1) that each person had a specific time in my life where they rose to prominence, or in other words, where they suffocated me the most 2) the end of each 'stage of prominence' was the start of the next. For example, when I thought I'd finally stepped out of my mum's narcissistic shadow, X stepped and morphed into that narcisstic figure until I'd decided it was time to cut ties. Around the same time, I met O and she slowly morphed into that person.

Continously, I realise I've always had that one presence in my life and each person would stay for many years until a breaking point, after which I would draw the line and keep my distance. As a rough estimate, I took about 25 years to understand that this exhausting cycle of going through toxic loved one after another is simply a lesson of setting boundaries.

I came to this realization in the past 6-12 months because I was having a particular hard time adjusting at work and it was really tough to master the art of stakeholder management. I won't say I'm an expert now, but I've gotten much better at putting my foot down and helping people to understand how their basic (read: brainless) actions are making my job unnecessarily difficult and defying my work ethics. I started to understand the importance of setting my own boundaries because we can never assume anyone would know them if we don't speak it.

Around the same time, I noticed the last person in this cycle, C had started to transition out of her role as the narcisstic shadow in my life entirely on her own. I've never had that happen to me without having to ruthlessly cut ties before. It's like something just clicked. On hindsight, the lesson just made sense and perhaps because I understand what it is now, there was no longer a need for the lesson to remain.

I always thought I was good at saying no to people, because I didn't care what they think which is true for the most part, I don't care what strangers think. What I came to realise about myself was that I needed help saying no to non strangers, people I care about, the people I need in my life.

***PART 2***

The word 'no' carried too much grief and associated history with abuse and neglect. My parents never made it easy for me growing up; affection was a competition between myself and both my younger sisters. My father could never find balance at work, so he overcompensated by trying to take control of everything at home. Nothing I said nor did could ever please him, he was always angry about the tiniest thing.

Everything was someone else's fault; between denying me any help with school work because I didn't go to a school of his choice and completely beating my self esteem down because I dare ask him for any help to a seemingly insignificant act like him accidentally stepping on my toes at the supermarket, he would twist and mold all my words until they made him looked like a hero in his own fantasy, that I was beneath him, and that everything bad that happened in his life was my fault and no one else's.

You couldn't fight him with reason even if you tried to, because he wasn't fighting for anything, he just wanted to win and he would say anything to wear you down. Every night would end in the same way, a disgustingly heated verbal mess between him, myself and my mom; abuse of any kind is simply the cheap power you get when you destroy people for the sake of your ego.

My mum was completely helpless in that regard, she stayed the hell out of his way whenever he had an outburst, even if it meant leaving me to fend for myself. I refused to back down from the injustice and his words dug its claws deeper in my gut, every quarrel we had made me sick with anger because no matter how hard I tried to defend myself, every takeaway was how each of his mistakes were the result of my failures even if it had nothing to do with it.

This went on for years. I knew I couldn't run away because I was underage, financially unstable and still needed a roof above my head. I felt absolutely helpless and remember crying myself to sleep all the time, praying to God to take me away - away from here, away from being the family's punching bag, away to another universe where parents actually protected their children, built them up and supported them.

Growing up in an environment where your survival thrived from avoiding all the stressors that could result in rage meant that I became extremely cautious in expressing my needs and opinions out of a fear of of displeasing my parents. Every subsequent outburst was a slap in the face, a painful reminder of how abandoned and unsupported I was in this family.

This led to a series of bad behaviors where I was desperate to please and longed for a life devoid of rejection. For the parts of myself who had endured so much neglect, I just couldn't bare the same devastation over again. Putting myself second and others first was easy as long as they were happy. I had this belief that if I accidently let myself be honest, people wouldn't accept me and I couldn't risk letting my guard down again.

Over time, I started saying yes to everything I wanted to say no to. Yes means no, no came with a '... but I'll do this for you instead' to overcompensate my fear. Slowly but surely, I became exhausted from pleasing people all the time. I said yes to social events I didn't care to be at, I patiently listened to every word of every person who needed me even if they didn't care to be there for me, I helped every toxic person who saw an opportunity to exploit my time and kindness. Without realizing, I was unnecessarily deriving a form of validation from being a yes-girl, I didn't know how to say no. Beyond that I'd lost my sense of self because I didn't know if anyone would care about me if I stopped doing all these things.

This obviously manifested in many unhealthy coping mechanisms and constantly wanting to be alone because I felt that everyone around me wanted something from me I couldn't give. It became a toxic cycle of self harm, feeling absolutely hopeless and finding sick joy in dreaming about the many different ways to end my life. At age 17, I've never felt more alone.

Ive had to see a counsellor for prolonged periods of my life and thisemotional abuse was one of the key moments that contributed to it.

Recovery was one hella of a slippery slope and had relapsed so many times I've lost count. I was convinced my abuse had rewired my body's ability to understand what love was, all I felt was the fire of resentment, burning my insides with the anxiety of having to live out the rest of my life in a bubble of 'my mistakes'.

Through my counsellor, we had to un-learnt the act of being too harsh of myself, as a result of the years I spent projecting my dad's expectations on myself. Rewiring your brain to calm itself down when you're triggered is difficult but not impossible. There were many scenarios where I became aware of the fact that the voice in my head mimicked my dad's in giving all but bone crushing criticism, guilt tripping my every move and spiralling myself into depression again.

Re-learning the notion of 'giving myself to others' whilst being 'unapologetically myself' was interesting and refreshing. Mostly, my subconscious got better at unlearning the act of constantly censoring myself for the sake of others; how to live freely & become a more honest version of myself regardless of the people around me. Not in any manner that might be of harm to others though, just in a way that allows me to stop relying on other people’s validation to keep my spirits lifted.

Every relapse back then sunk me into my depression, harder. Looking back now, I'm glad I didn't give up even though the chance was present and tempting every step of the way. Everyday still feels like a challenge, but I get it now when people say it gets easier

#wfth #getting stronger

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